Off Main Street: A stormy argument
The offbeat side of the news
When the rain and wind blew through town last Saturday, Father Joe Moreno was in the midst of 4:30 p.m. Mass at St. Lawrence Catholic Church on East Delavan Avenue.
The good reverend assured his startled congregation that the noisy storm erupting outside wasn’t anything to really worry about.
“Maybe it’s not weather related,” he then suggested. “Maybe it’s more than divine.”
“It’s possible,” Moreno said, “that Jimmy Griffin and God just had their first argument in heaven.”
The crowd roared.
“And,” he added, “they can’t agree on who should be president.”
Space-age superintendent
Could Buffalo School Superintendent James A. Williams be angling for a new job with zero gravity?
A news release that came across the Off Main Street desk implies that the superintendent wants to become an astronaut.
Really? Is Williams ready to leave School Board meetings behind and rocket off into the cold, dark heavens?
Maybe not. The media advisory from e3communications invites the press to attend a news conference Monday.
The event is being held to note the fact that three teachers from the Buffalo area will receive astronaut training at the U. S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., through the Honeywell Educators program.
Williams’ name is the first on the list — which includes two members of the Buffalo School Board — and that’s what got us wondering about a career change.
Never mind. The names of the three teacher space cadets soon followed when we scrolled down a bit more.
It seems Williams and the other dignitaries will be speaking at the news conference, only, and not getting ready to cut loose these earthly bonds.
Unbothered by boo birds
Monday’s Amherst Town Board meeting was a raucous affair, with 400 people pouring into Sweet Home High School to voice support or opposition to the controversial Amherst Town Centre project.
Of the 60 speakers who made public remarks, those who favored the project routinely found themselves the target of unkind boos and catcalls from some neighborhood opponents of the project.
None of that fazed one speaker, former Buffalo Sabres tough guy Matthew Barnaby.
“I’ve been cussed at and booed in a lot bigger places,” he informed the laughing crowd.
His star status did not insulate him from the kind of taunts he once faced on the ice.
They rained down on him when he stated that out-of-town friends and visitors to the Pepsi Center “have no place to go” when they come to Amherst.
Hey, those critics are just lucky he didn’t drop his gloves and respond to their abuse with his fists.
Pain on Main, plainly
East Aurora has an interesting twist on helping the public navigate through the state’s $17.5 million reconstruction of the village’s Main Street this year and next.
This week, the village launched an e-mail address that people can use to send along concerns on anything and everything related to the project.
In turn, they will be addressed by the village’s new special projects coordinator and followed up on the village’s Web site.
But it’s the very honest name in the e-mail address that caught our eye: “painonmain.”
This hardly suggests something positive and encouraging for locals and would-be shoppers who might venture to East Aurora to shop or check out some cultural spots or museums.
Mayor Clark Crook, a tech-savvy guy himself, came up with the address, painonmain@east-aurora.ny.us . He thinks it’s perfect. “You want a catchy name, so it gets used,” he said. “Of course, there’s method to our madness. Not only is it a little fun, it’s a little useful.”
In the end, it should be more than worth it, village officials say. “We all get a newly restored Main Street,“ Crook said.
